2023-12-01 13:17:49
The municipal association has set the course for the replacement of its controversial president Alfred Riedl (ÖVP): A statute reform that allows the president to be voted out was unanimously approved on Friday. Riedl only suspended his office in the summer because of allegations that he had benefited financially from a property deal in his community of Grafenwörth thanks to rezoning. The community association continues to hope that Riedl will avoid being voted out by resigning.
The new statutes stipulate, among other things, that in future it will be possible to vote out a president with a two-thirds majority and two-thirds present. In addition, the federal executive board – which consists of 64 mayors from all over Austria as well as the general secretary of the municipal association – agreed on the timetable for electing a new president. “Before Christmas, the regional associations will be invited to develop nominations for the office of president,” the two municipal association vice-presidents Andrea Kaufmann and Erwin Dirnberger were quoted as saying in a broadcast. The date for the next federal executive board meeting with a new election of the president was agreed across parties on February 26, 2024.
The aim of the appointment is to give the state associations time to prepare election proposals. The goal is a unanimous proposal for the new president. If Riedl does not vacate the field by then – as hoped in the community association – he will also be voted out there. However, it is assumed that Riedl will leave beforehand. He had recently continued to insist that he first wanted to wait for the results of the audit procedures from the State Audit Office and the District Authority.
Dirnberger and Kaufmann will continue to run the business as vice presidents until the new election, but neither of them is seeking the presidency, according to media reports. Johannes Pressl (ÖVP) is given good opportunities by the Lower Austrian Municipal Association – if only because Lower Austria accounts for a quarter of the federal board members. In principle, the ten state presidents can stand for election (Vienna is not represented in the municipal association, but Lower Austria and Burgenland each have their own ÖVP and SPÖ state association, note), Kaufmann is the only woman among them.
Riedl has been president of the association of municipalities since 2017, and from 1998 to 2018 he was a member of the Lower Austrian state parliament. He has been mayor of Grafenwörth (Tulln district) since 1990. Controversial property sales in his home community have put Riedl under pressure since the summer. The “Sonnenweiher” project, which has been described in the media as the “mini Dubai of the Weinviertel”, includes more than 200 houses around a foil lake. According to reports, Riedl is said to have earned more than one million euros from the sale of properties, and further deals were announced in the summer. Riedl himself has always rejected the allegations.
Green Party General Secretary Olga Voglauer sharply criticized Riedl in a broadcast on Friday. The change in the statutes is the “culmination of a sad escalation” that he could have prevented at any time with a timely resignation. “In any case, a responsible approach to one’s office looks different.”
In addition to the changes to the statutes – virtual federal board meetings and representation of the president are now also possible without a long absence or illness – financial equalization and municipal finances were also a topic at the meeting on Friday. “We know that more and more municipalities are reaching their limits when preparing their budgets for 2024. The number of municipalities that cannot balance their budgets will increase,” said Kaufmann and Dirnberger. It was therefore agreed to quickly hold discussions with the federal and state governments.
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